


Sweet Ascent

by phenanthrene_blue



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, M/M, Reunions, Spring Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phenanthrene_blue/pseuds/phenanthrene_blue
Summary: They’re just south of Orlando, but it’s still a rather chilly morning - itisonly February, after all.





	Sweet Ascent

They’re just south of Orlando, but it’s still a rather chilly morning - it _is_ only February, after all.

It’s around seven-thirty on the first official Sunday of Spring Training, and Ozzie is awake way earlier than he should be, reclining sleepily in the living room of their apartment. The couch is uncomfortably lumpy under his back, and he’s not used to lying on it.

They’ve been staying here for only a week. Even though Ozzie’s spent Spring Training in Florida before, he’s in that period where everything’s _new_ and _foreign_ and not-quite-home. The apartment itself is nice, despite being mostly empty, but at least the annoying chemical smell of the carpet cleaner has begun to fade.

And Ronnie’s slowly resuming his favorite Spring Training tradition, which appears to be opening his suitcase and throwing his clothes and shit _all over the bathroom_ simply because he _can_.

Ozzie just shakes his head at it and forces a laugh. Of course he secretly missed it.

Still, as of this morning, the place doesn’t feel remotely _lived in_ yet, except for the stack of dirty dishes in the sink and the greasy, lingering smell of fried fish. It was Ozzie’s mother’s recipe, and he had insisted that they attempt it, because eating nothing but cold pizza and protein shakes gets old after about four days.

As far as their cooking attempts were concerned, it was actually pretty good. At least, it was a passable _approximation_ of what his mother makes back home.

(An allegory, perhaps, for how everything at twenty-two is only a passable approximation of adulthood).

They had eaten, and then played MarioKart. Ozzie came in first by seventy milliseconds, and had to dodge Ronnie’s playfully-chucked controller. Then Ozzie came in first _again_ , and Ronnie placed ninth, and Ronnie suddenly leaned over and yanked on Ozzie’s hair as hard as he could, because Ronnie hates losing at _anything_. Then they had put on a movie, killed the lights, sat together on the floor, opened the bottle of whiskey that Ender had given Ronnie, and—

Ozzie closes his eyes; remembers; drops his shoulders into a sigh, and balances his half-full coffee mug - he actually got up and made _coffee!_ \- on his stomach.

A bird warbles mournfully somewhere outside. Ozzie cracks the blinds open and looks up through the condensation on the glass. It’s probably fifteen minutes after sunrise, and the sky is the light, washed-out lavender of early morning, the remaining orange on the horizon fading into the cloudless promise of a new day.

Neither of them played yesterday, against the Mets, but just the fact that there was a _game_ yesterday, where he could be with his teammates again, and chew sunflower seeds, and field routine ground balls, and _smell_ the leather of his new red glove - it’s as if there’s no ill anywhere in Ozzie’s world.

He feels like he’s lifting off the ground, weightless and free, all anticipation and hope and low, resonant excitement.

_But it’s more than that._

Ozzie slurps down the rest of his coffee, sets the mug gently in the sink, and walks into the hallway.

They’ve got a two-bedroom apartment, just like they had last year, and the door to Ronnie’s room is closed. When Ozzie sees the shut door, he feels an almost-reflexive kick of longing and isolation. It’s remnants of the long off-season that, in this moment, are still fresh and too-real, just like the too-clean refrigerator and being back on Eastern Standard Time.

_He’s not used to it yet._

Ozzie then walks to his bedroom, where the door is open. The second he steps inside, that _feeling_ -that all-consuming ache for the _one_ thing he’s missed the most for the past four months - is immediately pushed back and slain by the hard sweep of reassurance. It hits Ozzie so powerfully that it forces his face right into a smile.

Because Ronnie is right where Ozzie left him.

He’s in Ozzie’s bed, facing the window. He’s dead to the world, and Ozzie sees, through the muted brown light, how the thin blue blanket draped over Ronnie rises and falls with his breathing.

Ozzie sighs out the last of his residual tension, and, shucking his undershirt, climbs back into bed. He snuggles himself against Ronnie from behind, and curls into the limp, sleepy warmth of his best friend. Ronnie doesn’t even flinch.

Ozzie presses his forehead into the super-soft fabric of Ronnie’s favorite grey T-shirt, inhales deeply, and lets his eyelids fall closed.

Baseball is back, and _Ronnie_ is back, and Ozzie couldn’t be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Just experimenting with description and perspective while I try and work through extra-stubborn writer's block. 
> 
> Roughly in the same universe as "Sticks and Stones and Rocks and Shields".


End file.
